Shea

The forest pulses with light, points of it teasing her behind trunks and fronds: uncountable, and always receding. Shea scrambles over logs ripe with moss and stony creek beds. Her jar is slick with the sweat of her palm.

A reach, a scoop, and the fluting thump of her hand on the neck. There! Shea holds the jar up to peer through the lens on the bottom.

But the only thing inside is an impostor, an insect, its thorax glowing with false promise.

No matter. Shea discards it and scrambles off again. She’ll catch one of the real ones soon enough.